Review: Tailor Made: The Very Best of Smart Casual, Vol 1
COMEDY Review: Bernadette Neeling
Tailor Made: The Very Best of Smart Casual, Vol 1
Three Stars
Casa Mondo
Finding an unpretentious outfit in a "Fringe" setting is refreshing.
Tailor Made: The Very Best of Smart Casual Vol 1 made its WA premiere on Friday January 24 in the Casa Mondo in the Pleasure Garden. While the venue lacked the glamour of the much lauded Spiegeltent, it exuded just as much charm.
East coast musical comedy duo Roger David and Fletcher Jones, half-brothers Nick and Ben Mattick, intuitively know that just messing about can be as funny as their cleverly rehearsed material.
From Smart Casual's shocking pants-down entrance to their apparently reluctant encore, the pair provided their audience with clever songs and sketches, cheeky banter and absurd antics.
Whether telling tales of hat-stealing schoolyard bullies or chip-pinching seagull bullies, inspirational Sea Captains or Fathers, the pair almost always curved off into the ridiculous and surreal.
Usually set up with spoken word by David, absurd and narrative songs often juxtaposed straight man Jones' delicate guitar with incongruently sexual or violent lyrical content.
Familiar comedic scenarios were embraced and playfully augmented with music and personality.
The best-of format made it easy for the duo to quickly move on from jokes that missed the mark and the charisma on stage united skits and songs that could otherwise have felt disjointed.
The pair clearly understood their audience's limits, with Jones able to kindly ask the time of an audience member he had not long before been using as fodder for jokes.
The duo gave the crowd the encore they begged for, earning an involuntary cheer from with one fan in the crowd on recognition of "The Hawk Song," Smart Casual's hit about the lovechild of Stephen Hawking and Jennifer Hawkins.
The variety of humour was reflected in the assortment of laughs; chuckles, explosions, snickers, snorts and little "ahhs" just a bit too late.
While occasionally the humour was lowbrow and basic, Smart Casual's accessible wit validated their commercial success and ensured laughs throughout the entire show.
Tailor Made: The Very Best of Smart Casual, Vol 1 runs until January 28.
